The Puppy's Lullaby
by Eleutheria Wolf
Summary: "The parent Dogs always sing to show the Dogs' road to the Peaceful Realms to a Puppy who didn't survive." - Beka Cooper, Terrier. I always wondered what, exactly, the Dogs' road was. Now I know.


"_The parent Dogs always sing to show the Dogs' road to the Peaceful Realms to a Puppy who didn't survive." - Beka Cooper, Terrier_

The first ear pricked. The pack raised its head as one, and a thousand eyes glowed as the pack turned, moved, and leaped.

They were a river of fur, short and long, light and dark, all colors, brindle and bay and buckskin, stretched over tight and flowing muscle. Their eyes were as stars, sleek and bright; their fangs even brighter. They were many and one, a single organism, composed of the smooth brush of fur and the sweet touch of skin. They were what had been, what was, what had yet to be. They were the pack.

Again, the sound, the siren call that pulled them on, their hearts open and filled with warmth, with kinship, with belonging, with welcome. No sadness, as those who sung, for what had they to mourn? Long had they awaited this. Someone was coming home.

Across the stars, they ran, each eye shining with remembrance: once, they too had sung. Once, they too had come dancing up the starry trail on gentle pigeon wings, and once, they too had come laughing into the pack's enfolding grasp, never to leave it, never to want to leave it. On and on, they ran, the image of the starry trail bright in their eyes. A river of muzzles flung high, of shoulders and haunches rippling smoothly as they ran, of tails waving high in joy.

At last, after forever and never, the starry path grew there before them, and the pack howled as one, high sweet notes of joy. A shape, shimmery and misted from distance far down the winding path, tossed its muzzle high and sang a reply, and the pack went wild with dancing as a male, broad-shouldered and dark of fur, stumbled up from the path onto the land of the pack. Though he smelled of foreignness, of drink, of blood, of night and fire, the pack closed in and rubbed the strangeness away, covering the male with their own until there could be no difference between the pack and him. Individuals yipped and yapped in glee as the male's littermates, mother dog, once-time mentor found him and found one another.

But all was not finished, for the male paused in his reuniting and turned away, to look back down the starry trail from whence he had come, howling once, long and low. And the pack listened, and the pack heard; and from down the trail came a sound, rising and falling, growing closer and bearing on its waves of sound another shape, dark and small. The sound, no, the _music_, stilled the pack, for they knew, they knew, what the song meant. Slowly, one by one, the pack began to croon the song, rising and falling with the singers of long below, connecting as only they could to the ones who would someday run with the pack. And the figure on the music grew closer and closer.

At last it stumbled, on weary feet, from the starry trail, carried all the way only by the music, for this one was young, and had not know the way. A girl, not a dog, fair of face, knelt before the pack. She raised her face, and looked at them, eyes wide in shock, for the little sister had not known of this. It took time for the knowledge to grow, and the little sister who the pack now crooned for had no been given this time. The girl looked about, uncertain. Where was the man she had followed here? Why was she not with the one who had fallen beside her? The male, gentle-eyed, stepped forward, and the girl cringed down, eyes on him, eyes that were beginning to understand.

"Rollo?" the girl whispered, her eyes wide. The male simply moved forward, to stand in front of the slight sister, and lowered his muzzle to her forehead. Gently, in long slow swipes, he cleaned her as a mother cleans her pups, and the pack came forward to do the same, cleansing their little sister, enveloping her in the feeling of pack as they had done with the male, dragging away all the things that kept her cocooned in her skin. Her weariness, her fear, her sadness, the pack washed it all away, and the pale cocoon opened to reveal a slender young girl-dog, long of limb and big of paw in the way that all young ones are. Unsteady as a newborn fawn, for indeed, their little sister had been reborn, the girl-dog stood and raised her muzzle to the starry sky, letting out a pure note. The pack rose, tilting their heads to the sky, and sang, crooning the last lines of the song that was yet fading, the song that had shown their little sister the way.

_Find your way, young Puppy, to the place in the stars_

_Where they, they are waiting for you_

_Run the trail, my Puppy, the trail all Dogs run_

_Today, they are waiting for you_

–


End file.
